R Ashwin gets emotional, reacts to Team India's T20 World Cup victory celebrations

Veteran Indian off-spinner R Ashwin was overwhelmed seeing Team India's T20 World Cup win celebrations nationwide on Thursday (July 4). In the wee hours of Thursday, the Rohit Sharma-led Indian squad arrived in New Delhi, after being stranded in Barbados due to Hurricane Beryl after their T20 WC final win over South Africa on June 29, and the whole country went into jubilation mode. After meeting PM Narendra Modi, they flew to Mumbai where BCCI arranged an open-top bus victory parade at the Marine Drive, enroute Wankhede Stadium.

Seeing a huge crowd gathered at the Marine Drive of the city and the iconic stadium, where the Indian players were felicitated by the board, Ashwin reacted on X, formerly Twitter.

He took to his official handle and wrote on the platform, "Watching all the videos and pictures from the celebrations yesterday in Mumbai just fills my heart. This nation has given and continues to give so much to the sport. Once again so proud of the champions."

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At the felicitation ceremony, Virat Kohli -- who was the Player-of-the-Match in India's 7-run win over Proteas in the final, spoke about his hug with Rohit post the victory. Talking to the event host Gaurav Kapoor, he sad, "Rohit and I, we've been trying this for so long. We always wanted to win a World Cup. Bringing the trophy back to Wankhede is a very special feeling... When I was walking up the stairs, I was crying. Rohit was crying. I will never forget that moment."

Talking about the T20 WC final, India defended 176-7 courtesy of Hardik Pandya's 3 for 20 and brilliant two-fers each from Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh. With this, India ended their 11-year-long ICC title drought and won their second T20 WC title after 2007.